Feb 10th Vaccine Update Fed/State/Local

On February 10th, 2021 the Issues and Policy Committee of the Santa Cruz County Business Council met and heard a staff presentation on the current state of vaccine distribution at the federal, state, and local levels. You can access the full presentation here, but please know it is a policy overview, and not a guide…

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What Bus Service?

That’s a question the residents of Santa Cruz County might soon be asking themselves if any of the following state bill pass: A1350, AB2012, and AB2176. Each one is aimed at increasing ridership in existing bus systems by completely eliminating the cost of ridership for specific age groups and people. AB1350 would allow anyone under the…

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Primary Election Results, Subject to Change

It’s officially been a week since the California March 3rd primary, and based upon the latest results both statewide and locally, it was a much tighter election than I think most people thought it would be. Yes Bernie Sanders overwhelmingly won California, but that was pretty much expected to happen, even with the announcements of…

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AB 5 Legislative Update

With the new legislative year approaching we thought it would be a good idea to give an update on the newest gig-worker law, California’s AB 5. We have previously covered AB 5 here, but essentially this bill set the ABC test as the official standard for independent contractors. There are a variety of bills aimed…

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RIP 50 (for now)

Unfortunately for most California residents, SB50, a bill that would have prioritized new housing development near job centers and high quality public transit–but was contingent upon providing higher levels of affordable housing–died last month in the state senate. There were two “groups” that were vocally opposed to the bill: folks who are generally against new development, but hide…

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Do Project Labor Agreements Hurt Local Workers?

Two weeks ago I received a series of calls from a number of local businesses that do work with the City of Santa Cruz, who were outraged about an item that was appearing on the City Council’s agenda that would severely favor out of the area businesses for all future contracts. It seems, without first reaching…

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SB50 – Back in Action

Last year the Business Council worked extensively on SB50, an update to the State’s Density Bonus Law that allows for higher density development and expedited approval processes for eligible parcels near high quality transit corridors and job centers. We even wrote an extensive article about the bill, and made the trip to Sacramento to lobby…

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New Year New Updates: State and Local Homelessness 2020

There is a lot of commotion in the City of Santa and the entire state of California around how governments can be more efficient in reducing the number of people experiencing homelessness. Recent data documented by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reveals that California has “more than 151,000 homeless people, including more than…

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Vote with Your Dollars: Bonds and Ballot Measures

At our last board meeting, the Business Council had an opportunity to hear from representatives from Measure R, Measure Y, and Measure Z about the details of these specific ballots. Read what these representatives had to say by reading the summary below. For more information about all nine upcoming local ballot measures visit https://www.votescount.com/Home/Elections/March2020PresidentialPrimary/March3localmeasures.aspx Cabrillo College,…

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A Gig Update

As was expected, Uber Technologies and Postmates Inc. filed a legal challenge against California’s AB5 “Gig Economy” law this past week in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, which is appealable to the Federal Ninth Circuit Court. AB5 was adopted by the State legislature this past year to codify the…

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